I started playing Dark Souls 3 recently, and I'm proud to say that, having played the game for the last 5 days, I've only died 81 times, started over 6, and rage quit a mere 7 times. As I replayed the tutorial level, though, I started thinking about what makes a good tutorial level. And so, I compiled a short list of the Do's and Don'ts of Tutorial levels.
Do- Show the player the basic controls. This is pretty basic, really. The tutorial will show the player how to use the controls, bit by bit. There are, however, several ways to do this, and I think Fallout 4 gives us the best example of a button tutorial done right. As the Sole Survivor walks through Vault 111, a few pop up windows appear at the top left corner of the screen, telling the player which button does what. It's eye catching, due to the animation present, but it isn't particularly distracting. Short, sweet, and to the point.
Don't- Interrupt the flow of game play just to offer a lesson on mechanics. You're playing a tutorial level, going with the flow, then suddenly BAM! The game interrupts you just to give you more instructions. An example would be Pokemon TCG for the Gameboy Color, which sees fit to interrupt the entire tutorial just to tell you the game mechanics. This slows down the tutorial, making it much longer than it needs to be. Oh, and speaking of...
Don't- Carry the player by the hand. This is when the tutorial plays itself for you; either the player's actions are limited to only what the game tells you to do, or the game's AI makes every move needed to win the level, turning the player into either a puppet or a spectator. The previously mentioned Pokemon TCG is guilty of the former, not only instructing the player on what to do, but only permitting the moves instructed by the game itself to be played. The latter is best exemplified by Final Fantasy Tactics, where the player controls only 1 character (Ramza) but the other 5 members of the party are controlled by the computer AI, and deal most of the damage to the enemy. The player's involvement in the tutorial becomes, at best, minimal. In turn, this means that the player may end up unprepared for the game's first REAL battle.
Do- Give the player freedom. The best tutorial levels, in my opinion, are those that just drop the player into the action and let them figure out for themselves how to play the game. This is how Dark Souls 3 does its tutorial, offering a minimum of explanation, plenty of open space, easy enemies to kill, and most importantly, a challenge. Also...
Do- Give the player a taste of what's to come. The tutorial level offers the bare minimum of what's to come. This is best exemplified in Donkey Kong Country, where the first level, Jungle Hijinks, shows precisely what the game is about. Mainly, that there's exploration (going back to the tree house for an extra life, bananas and extra lives in the treetops) that there are enemies to defeat, that blindly going forward will get you killed, that there are bonus levels, and that sometimes, you can ride a rhino, making the level so much easier.
Don't- Take too long. Whereas I can call DKC's first level one of the best tutorial levels ever, I can just as easily claim Kingdom Hearts 2 to have the WORST tutorial ever, by the simple factor of it taking at least two hours to beat. In an RPG, a tutorial should include one dungeon, one boss, one puzzle (if the game has many of them), and MAYBE two or three cutscenes. I'd say that Digimon World 2 best exemplifies how an RPG tutorial should be, as it contains each of these elements, while also taking no more than ten minutes to beat.
Do- Give the player a taste of power. What I mean is, let the player have some fun with something that will certainly come much later in the game, for a little while, For example, MapleStory allows users who start with an Aran character to make full use of his later level combos during the tutorial level. This not only gives players a taste of how to play Aran, but of what Aran is capable of once fully leveled, thereby giving the player a larger incentive to level up their character.
Do- Make the tutorial skippable. Self explanatory. Some players enjoy having more than one playthrough; why sit through the tutorial again?
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